The present invention relates to a toner cartridge for replenishing additional toner to a developing device.
To eliminate accidental contamination during the supply of toner, there has been proposed a toner cartridge having a toner-storing container therein and constructed such that, after the toner cartridge has been loaded in a developing device, a doubled seal that seals an opening of the container is automatically removed from the opening while a cover that also closes the opening is manually pulled out, as disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication (Kokai) No. 59-93471/1984, U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,070 and others. This type of prior art toner cartridge has a problem that the seal cannot be removed beyond half the length of the opening even if the cover is fully pulled out, i.e., the end of the seal has to be manually pulled out over the other half of the opening so as to empty the container.
Another approach to remove the seal is disclosed in Japanese laid-open utility model publication (Kokai) No. 61-117170/1986, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 801,931 filed Nov. 26, 1985, and others. In accordance with this approach, a toner cartridge is provided with a wind-up roller which may be manually rotated from the outside. Specifically, after the toner cartridge has been mounted in a developing device, the roller is rotated from the outside to tear off the seal. While this kind of approach is capable of fully and positively removing the seal, it brings about another problem that an extra space is needed for the roller to be rotated with the toner cartridge loaded in the developing device. Such prevents the toner cartridge from being applied to a wide-use developing device.